Downingtown redistricting plan nears finalization

EAST CALN — The Downingtown Area School District’s Redistricting Steering Committee presented its methods and finalized report to the school board for its consideration during a work session on Wednesday night.

The work session, which was held in the district’s administrative building, allowed school board members to publicly discuss the committee’s recommendations.

While board members did not vote on whether to accept the recommendations, after almost three hours of questions, discussions and minor debates, the board agreed to further discuss the recommendations during its next committee meeting of the whole, set for 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1.

The school board must vote on redistricting by its June 5 meeting.

Through a voting process, the committee approved the recommendations, which are expected to be presented to the Board of Education for consideration.

Recommendations for elementary school redistricting include:

• Redistricting will be effective at the beginning of the 2014-15 school year, with one neighborhood exception.

• A grandfather clause option for any redistricted student beginning the fifth grade in the 2014-15 school year is also being recommended. Any redistricted student who will begin the fifth grade in the 2014-2015 school year will have the option of moving to their new school, or, finishing up their last elementary school year in the school they were previously assigned to. District transportation will not be provided to any child electing to stay at their former school. Parents must agree to provide transportation to and from the former school for this option to be selected.

• The committee is not recommending any early transitioning into the newly assigned schools. This means that in the 2013-14 school year, kindergarten students will begin school in their currently assigned school and will shift to their new elementary school in 2014-15 to begin the first grade.

• The only neighborhood change the committee approved during the elementary discussion during its latest meeting was to move students from the Highlands and Colonial Woods neighborhoods in West Bradford Township. The new recommendation is to move these neighborhoods from West Bradford to Bradford Heights Elementary School.

• All other committee recommendations that were presented in the March 7 webinar will be submitted to the school board for its consideration.

Recommendations for secondary school redistricting include:

• Rebalancing will begin in the 2015-16 school year. The Redistricting Steering Committee voted 16-5 that students living in the Williamsburg and Norwood House neighborhoods will be moved from Downingtown High School East to Downingtown High School West.

• The committee is recommended giving students living in the redistricted neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Norwood House, who are in eighth through 12th grade at the start of the 2015-16 school year, the option of moving into their new secondary school at Downingtown West, or graduating from their currently assigned high school, Downingtown East. Students who will be in seventh grade as of 2015 and reside in Williamsburg and Norwood House would attend Downingtown Middle School at the beginning of the 2015-16 school year.

Parents had previously voiced their concerns over the committee’s proposals during public input meetings held in March. Their primary issue with the proposals was that some students would be making multiple moves throughout a few years, and that such transitions could be difficult or pose a negative impact on developing children.

Additionally, other parents, including school board member Suzanne Simonelli, who was also on the committee, questioned whether a decision needed to be made to rebalance the district’s high schools.

“We don’t have an overcrowding issue anymore at the secondary schools,” Simonelli said. “We had one once.”

According to Simonelli, in spite of the growth projections presented by McKissick Associates, an educational planning firm, the estimations of the district’s growth 10 years from now represent a conservative guess; however, estimates of the district’s growth beyond three to five years is “really hard to project” and “is a lot more of a guess.”

“We’re not even (redistricting the secondary school) for two more years,” Simonelli said. “Do we have to make a decision now? Can we see if we are going to have an issue?”

But Julie Murphy, who said she was not speaking as a committee member but instead as a parent, maintained that redistricting can be seen as an opportunity rather than a challenge. Both of Murphy’s children were subject to redistricting in the past.

“I feel my kids benefitted from going to a split school,” Murphy said. “We put a positive spin on it. As parents, we need to give our kids the tools (to deal with change). It really isn’t the end of the world.”